


Lottery

by orphan_account



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Angst, Candles, Cold Tea, Eventual Happy Ending, Fairies, Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, poinsettias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 22:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13397862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Two walks of life, one soul.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stefanyeah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stefanyeah/gifts).



> For Snowpremacy 2017-2018.

_Excerpt from “A History of The Little Ones Around Us,” written by [omitted], published on [omitted]._

One may be familiar with a presence around them at all times, that of a little being, a mere three or four inches in height. The being itself is in the form of a man or woman, but is obviously smaller than a normal one. Another distinguishing factor of these beings is their wings—which can come in hundreds of thousands of colors and patterns.

These little humans are known quite simply as fairies.

Fairies are born with a human, and that fairy grows with the family of the newborn human. The fairy and the human are connected for life, then, and coexist with a mutually beneficial relationship. Both the human and the fairy benefit from the other’s skills, which will be discussed further on in this book.

Many fairies behave in the same manner as humans—they must eat, drink, and rest in order to survive. Communication and socialization are also essential for a fairy’s wellbeing, as they are as social as the humans they live with. All fairies experience pain in a similar manner as humans. Fairies tend to have a slightly higher metabolism than humans, as well as longer endurance for physical activity. This is mostly due to the fact that they must use large bursts of energy to keep themselves in the air. They therefore need to eat more than humans.

Fairies, as stated in paragraph _[omitted],_ appear to look like scaled-down humans. They are bipedal, have a variety of skin tones, as well as eye and hair colors, but stand at a height of three or four inches and weigh in at about twenty-five grams. Often, humans dress their fairies in traditional garments, known as _klere_ (singular: kleed) _._ Klere are often natural tones, and can range from being a simple pair of cutoffs to elaborate, hand-stitched gowns. What ties the different types of klere together are the likeliness to clothing worn in the middle ages.

Different types of fairies are known to have different wings, although the reason for this is not known. A few examples include bird-like wings, butterfly wings, bee wings, and dragon wings. Combinations are known to appear frequently, and, slightly less so, cases where a fairy has one of each. 

Fairies can die one of two ways. The first, and most common, is when their human dies. There is a certain bond created at birth that ensures that fairies cannot live without their human, which makes it essential that they stay with their humans. Without a connection, fairies are unsure when they will die, making their lives infinitely more stressful.

The second, and more uncommon, way, is through dying of a broken heart. This rarely occurs, although several instances have been shown throughout history. A brief hypothetical situation would be that one fairy falls for another, but the other dies, leaving the first one alone. The first fairy will eventually perish from the loss. Death by broken heart is the most painful for a fairy, as it is a slow decaying process that can take months. And, while a fairy cannot live without a human, a human can live without a fairy. This has been known to be a painful experience for the human.

Apart from this, a fairy cannot die.

Although rarely, it is important to mention that it is possible for a human to fall in love with its

_End of excerpt._


	2. Chapter 2

Matt’s a piece of work, I swear.

For a tiny guy, he’s the most destructive person I know. I can’t let my eyes off him for more than an hour, or our house will be in shambles. It’s just the way he is; he’s always been like that, even when we were kids. I mean, I can’t really blame him. He’s just… well, _hyper._

And today’s no different. I’m making us breakfast—cinnamon spice oatmeal—when I hear a massive _clang_ coming from my room, followed by a squeaked ‘Chris!’. Within a second, I’m dropping my serving spoon and rushing in, fearing that he’s gotten himself hurt for real. “Matt!” I call when I don’t immediately see him, but a tiny flicker of movement on the floor catches my eye. He’s waving his arm, but that’s the only visible part of him. The rest of his body is caught under a tissue box. Muffled cries make their way out from beneath. Scattered around are spare pencils, pens, scissors—he must’ve knocked over my metal can.

I can’t help but roll my eyes as I lift the tissue box, finding him underneath. “Hi!” he chirps, lifting himself up to his feet and brushing himself off. His shoulders roll back, and with it comes a trembling flutter of his wings. They’re magnificent shades of blue, with orange flecks between some of the feathers.

“Hi yourself,” I mutter, scooping him up in my hand. The fluffy softness of his wings tickles my palm in the process. “You’re always getting into trouble. I can’t leave you alone for _five minutes….”_

“Okay, well, it wasn’t my fault,” he counters sassily, starting his climb up my arm to my shoulder. “I was just trying to get a blanket and the damn thing _fell.”_

I shake my head, returning to my oatmeal. His tiny hands are barely-there brushes against my sleeves as he hoists himself further up onto my body. Even for a fairy, he’s a slight thing. “I’ve told you many times—you want something, you ask me. Years I’ve been telling you that. _Years,_ Matt. And, besides, I’ve got extra blankets for you in my drawer. Just _ask!”_

He scoffs. “No. You were busy and I was cold.” One of his hands grabs my ear and he yanks, dragging himself onto my head. I’ve asked him before why he doesn’t fly, and he told me that flying makes him tired. It’s bound to, with those wings—they’re basically works of art on his back, and massive on him as well. Being able to sleep wherever and whenever he wants, therefore, has always been a vital trait of his. And he needs it, too, with the energy it takes to use those wings.

I find them beautiful, but he doesn’t have to know that.

With haste, I finish the oatmeal, serving it into two distinctly different sized bowls and placing them on our table. “You want anything on it?” I ask, moving my hand to my head so he can use it to climb down.

“Nah.”

The rest of our meal passes in silence.

That is, until he decides to interrupt.

“Today’s the day, isn’t it?”

I give him a solemn nod. I know he already knows it, but he needs that verification.

“Are we—”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I mumble through a mouthful of oatmeal. “You know that we’re not gonna get it. We’re two guys. There’s thousands of girls who are way more qualified.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not fair. I’m just as eligible as them.”

“I know you are,” I whisper, leaning over to look him in the eye. He’s sitting atop the table, bowl in his lap, wide blue eyes staring at me in fascination. It’s a permanent look on his face. “If it were my choice, Matt, you’d be up there first.” One of my fingers trails to his left wing, which is resting at his side and draped on the table a bit. The very tip of my finger plays with the feathers, unbelievably soft. It’s our way of saying that it’ll be alright.

A shrug from him. “I mean, I love being who I am, but… being able to be _big,_ like you, seeing the world from where you are, being able to cook or do laundry, I just… I want to be like you, Chris. It seems so _cool._ And—And I’d still keep my wings, so I could take you everywhere.”

“Matt,” I warn, knowing that the tangent will only make him sadder.

He can never have that. It’s never going to happen.

His eyes dart away, back to his oatmeal. He has some more.

So do I.

We dress—him in his olive kleed and me in my black suit—before heading out for the day. We have to go to the city center. Each year, we try to drown ourselves in beer and sandwiches to forget that he’s one of the millions of fairies who has to stay a fairy for life.

He flutters alongside me occasionally, whenever we want to talk face-to-face, and I can’t help but look at those shimmers of orange in his feathers. He’s always been self-conscious about his wings, saying that they’re too long and too bright, but I find them stunning. I’ve never seen a fairy with wings quite like his.

“Let’s just get it over with,” I mutter eventually, heading towards the city center. He sighs heavily atop my head, the breath stirring my hair a bit, but doesn’t protest. There’s no use—we have to do it eventually.

Hundreds of booths are set up in the center of our city. Each one has a line of about four people, waiting to get their numbers for the lottery.

It works like this: Every citizen is entitled to one number. So, Matt and I get two numbers together. Women are entitled to two numbers each, so a female pair would get four in total. Those who are higher in status—government workers, family of royalty, the rich—are entitled to more. Up to a thousand _each._ At the end of the day today, The Festival of Candles, which falls every December 25 th, they pull three numbers from a pot. The pairs who have those numbers are then allowed to complete a sort of half-transition. It’s a craved thing among everyone, to exist in the same world as your partner. One person in the pair is therefore allowed to become the other race; a fairy can become a human, or a human can become a fairy. Only the size changes, though. If I were to become a fairy, I wouldn’t suddenly get wings or be able to nut as many times as I want. It’s simply about existing in the same plane as your partner.

What I want more in the world than anything, is for Matt to be as big as me so I can finally weave my hands through his feathers.

We step up to a booth, where a friendly woman and her fairy greet us. They have us fill out the usual forms, before randomizing a number for each of us. I get nine-hundred-thirty-seven, Matt gets fifteen thousand, six-hundred-twenty-nine. With heavy hearts, we take the slips of paper with our name and numbers, thanking the women and walking away.

“Come on,” I say with a poke to his wings, “let’s go party. This is supposed to be a night of celebration, right?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know, Chris. I just….” I can feel his hands fisting clumps of my hair. “I don’t feel up to it. I just feel sad.”

“I know,” I mutter in response, catching myself before I call him something I shouldn’t. “It sucks, Matt, I know it does. How about… how about we have a quiet night? I’ll take you to a café. How about that?”

The resulting silence leads me to believe that he thinks that’s a good idea, so I steer myself in the direction of the best café I know.

It’s a small joint, but the celebratory atmosphere makes it cozy. Soft lighting and quiet music fill the sparsely-crowded space, and the unmistakable aroma of mint wafts around the dining room. I order tea for the two of us, and find a place where we can both sit comfortably. Matt flutters onto the table, plopping down and shivering his wings. A few feathers fall to the table, ones he’s shed and can’t use anymore. They’re miniscule things, almost like blue dust specks on the smooth wood.

“So, what are we doing tomorrow?” he asks, trying to forget about today.

“I’ve got work, and so do you,” I remind him. “And afterwards, we have the day to ourselves. I was thinking of going out to the movies?”

He nods, looking down at his hands. He’s picking at his fingers—a bad habit I remind him countless times to stop.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, poking his hands so he ceases his picking. He just shrugs in response, wings shining in the dim light.

“Seasonal depression, I guess.”

The woman at the counter, at that moment, calls me to collect my tea, and I do so, setting it down in front of us both.

“And I guess I’m just… disappointed.”

“About what?”

His tiny hands clench into fists. “Everything, Chris. It’s everything. I just want to be a _person,_ like you. I just—I just want to be able to walk around wherever I want, and go to work myself, and eat a normal amount of food, and do everything that you can do. And it’s not fair that only rich people have that opportunity! It’s _not_ fair, Chris!”

“I know, Matt,” I whisper, before he bursts into tears. I scoop him up in my hands and hold him close to my chest. I know he can feel the relentless thumping of my heart in my ribs, but I don’t care. Every year he gets worked up over the lottery. Furious that the chance is there but he’ll never get it. Don’t get me wrong—I’m mad about it as well. But it’s not my life that’s hanging in the balance every year.

Continually, I whisper reassurances to him, until the trembling in my hands slows to a stop. When I pull my hands away to look at him, his wings are folded at an awkward angle that form a blanket around his body. His fingers grasp the bone of his left wing, and the tiny specks that are his eyes peek out from atop it.

“Hey,” I mutter, moving him so that we’re at eye level. If I look closely, I can see faint sparkles of aquamarine in those deep blue jewels. “We’re going to be alright, yeah?”

He nods slowly.

“We’re gonna go to the lottery, we’re gonna listen to the numbers and watch the ceremony, and then we’re gonna go home. How’s that sound?”

He nods again, this time more sure of himself. His wings begin to fall back to their natural position behind him.

“And—And how about I get you flowers? You love flowers. I’ll get you red ones, they’re your favorite, right? And we have good tea right here. I can get you snacks, too. Anything you want. I’ll pay.” I want nothing more than for him to be happy on the saddest day of the year, and so I’m willing to give him anything he wants. Anything that I can, at least.

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “Okay.”

I bring him to my cheek, nuzzling the softness that is his right wing. He caresses me right back, fingers brushing against my stubble.

The words almost slip from my mouth, but I hold them back, covering them with others as I pull him away. “Drink your tea, and we’ll go, okay?”

With soft feet, he steps off my hands. Tiny fingers wind around his cup and he takes a sip, face screwing up afterwards. “It’s cold.”

I glance down and notice that the steam has stopped coming off my own, as well.

Oh, such is life.

Nevertheless, we gulp down the remains of our cold tea, before heading back out to the main street. Strings of lights have been hung just for the occasion, and the normally neon-tinted roads seem bright and warm in the night. The streets are lined with people and fairies, strolling in pairs or groups of four. Comfortable noise fills the air around us. If you look hard enough, you can see translucent puffs of mist riding atop breaths, lingering just for a second before dissipating into nothingness. The entire street fills me with joy, simply from the serenity of it, but I know that I should be feeling sorrow—the decorations are merely a happy façade for the events that are to come.

Matt takes his place in my shirt pocket and settles into a comfortable napping position as we head towards a florist. I promised him red flowers, and red flowers he’ll get. The shop itself is quaint, run by my mate Tom and his wife. They make simple arrangements, but they’re some of the most beautiful I’ve seen.

The lanky brunet claps me on the back as I walk in. “What’s up, Chris?” he asks in a booming voice, one that doesn’t particularly suit his body.

“Not much,” I grin back. He never fails to make me smile. “I’m getting something for Matt.”

“Ooh, whatcha want?”

“Something red. Anything left?”

He turns and heads to the far end of the shop. “I’ve got something. They’re small, but hey, so is he.” He hands me a tiny bouquet, half the size of my thumb, but wonderfully red. A green foil of some sort wraps around the stems, holding them sturdily together while still appealing to the eye. He’d _love_ it.

“How much?” I ask, but he waves me off.

“Consider it your Candleday present.”

“Really?”

“Course.”

I look back down at the bouquet in my hands, then up at him. “Th-Thanks. He’s gonna love it.”

Another laugh. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you two were together.”

“Good thing you know better, then,” I reply, just on the edge of being too quick, too defensive.

“Bye, Chris. Have a nice night.” _He didn’t notice._

“You as well.” A quick parting smile, and I leave the shop. It might not be much for me to just get Matt a flower bouquet, but at least it’s something. Hopefully he’ll feel a bit better.

My fingertip prods his dozing form through the thick fabric of my shirt. “Hey.”

“Mm?” His voice is clogged with sleep.

“Wake up. I got you something.”

The tip of my finger hooks over the hem of my shirt pocket to pull it away. He’s blinking up at me, eyelids fluttering open. “Whassit?”

With tender softness, the rest of my finger slides into my pocket. He grabs it and I hoist him up to a standing position, so he peeks out over the top. “Look,” I mutter, using my other hand to give him the bouquet. It takes him a moment to realize what it is, but when he does, his eyes shine with the light of a million candles.

“Poinsettias!” he exclaims suddenly, the sleep disappeared from his eyes. “Chris, you got me poinsettias?”

I nod. “I promised you flowers, and they were the only red ones Tom had.”

He takes them from my hands, ever so gentle with the slick foil that’s been wrapped around the stems. I watch curiously as he inspects them, fondles the petals, holds them to his nose and takes a sniff.

He’s beautiful. The sheer wonder on his face is enchanting, and I feel as if I could give him a million flowers and watch him investigate them for days, if it meant I could see him like that. He’s… stunning. There’s simply no other word for it. My stomach does leaps into my ribs as I take in the fact that we're together for life. Even if it's not in the way I want it to be.

“Thank you,” he says, eyebrows shot a mile high and mouth wide with marvel. “Thank you so much, Chris. I love it.”

“I love y—”

My tongue catches in my throat, and only the first few letters of the sentence come out. Instead of finishing it, I purse my lips and look away, hoping to whatever god there is that he doesn’t realize what I’ve said. When I turn back, I see him looking up at me with almost a look of dread.

He knows.

“Chris,” he whispers. His voice is only a faint murmur in the night air. “I… We can’t….”

Involuntarily, I feel my eyes start to burn and my nose start to itch with the threat of tears. “I know.”

“And I just—”

 _“I know.”_ I feel my breath speeding up, words spilling out of my mouth. “I know you can’t, and I—and it’s illegal, and all, but I just want you to know that I do and there’s—there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m so sorry, Matt. I really am.”

I’d been so scared to tell him, but I’ve known for years. You see, there is only one person you can fall in love with. No one else. But the problem with interspecies soulmates is that they are completely and unconditionally illegal. There were too many problems in the past with, er, forcing things in places they shouldn’t be. Too many assaults, too much abuse. Generally, too much taking-advantage-of.

A human found fallen for a fairy is punishable by separation, or in some cases, death.

If anyone, even Tom, knew that I was in love with Matt, I’d never see him again. And living in pain every day is much better than being forced into what can only be described as exile.

Matt exhales. Pale smoke circles around his head for a second, before he looks back down at the flowers. His wings shrivel at the thought of what could happen to us, the same thoughts that have been flying through my own brain.

Instead of telling me them, though, he stares down at the flowers in his hands, burying his face into them. He says something, something undiscernible, into the vibrant petals.

When he looks back at me, he’s smiling again. “They’re so pretty.” The slits of his eyes close with his grin.

I grin back. “Yeah.”

A few moments of silence pass between us as we pretend to forget what has just happened.

I interrupt. “We’re going to go to the festival now, okay? They’re gonna be starting soon.”

He doesn’t reply, which I interpret from years of friendship as a sign of agreement. With that, I head towards the city center, where the candle lighting will begin soon. It’s a quiet walk, populated by lingering dread from the earlier hours of the evening.

We arrive. Everything is set up magnificently—if the streets had been illuminated, the city hall was shimmering. Millions of tiny flickering candles helped to create the illusion of daylight, and they did so fantastically. While the ceremony might have been something we dreaded, the impressiveness of the decorations had to be marveled at. Fantastic gold and red tinsel lines every building, every fountain, every crevice and curve visible. Thousands of people are gathered in the square with us, standing, chatting, waiting for the event to start. It gives the whole area further warmth.

Distant movement catches my eye over the crowd. It’s the President—she’s getting up onto the podium onstage. “Get up,” I hiss to Matt, who takes a moment to stretch his wings and then flutter up to my head.

“Ladies and gentlemen of all sizes,” the President says, instantly silencing the crowd of thousands. From our spot, I’m close enough to see her lips twist up in a soft smile. “Welcome to the annual Candleday Drawing. If you are unaware, or if this is your first drawing, I bid you a happy Candleday!”

The crowd cheers. I clap along.

“We are going to be drawing three numbers from our database.” She points to a large bowl to her left. “If you have registered earlier today and received a number, you have the possibility of being drawn from this bowl. When you do, you will come onstage, and be handed a candle. I will light it, and you will blow it out. In that moment, through the power of complete magic, you will be transitioned to the same size of your partner. You will not, however, completely change races—although there are a separate set of rules you must follow that will be explained after the transition is complete. All clear?”

It’s the same speech every year, but we cheer anyway. The energy of the crowd is getting to me, and I feel myself smiling.

“The drawing will begin now.”

With those five words, the crowd silences, and we all wait for her to draw. Her fingers creep into the bowl, and, in some swirl of tension, she pulls out a slip of paper. She reads the number.

“Six thousand, twenty-seven.”

A blond couple, a female human and a male fairy, push their way through the crowd and onto the stage. The ceremony continues, then, as the President lights the candle and says a few words. The female blows it out, and, in a blinding swirl of yellow light, she’s shrunk to fairy-size. The couple embraces, then walks offstage, to an area where they’re going to presumably be briefed.

Another drawing.

“Eight.”

It’s rare that a single digit gets picked, and the winner of the occasion is a double female pair, both with shining black hair. The human, again, elects to become smaller. 

The final number. I’ve accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to get it, so I begin to make my way to the edge of the crowd.

She reads it.

“Fifteen thousand, six-hundred-twenty-nine.”

In my movements, I’ve noticed a bit of a hubbub, and I turn back to see that no one’s been rushing to the stage excitedly. The President, a bit flustered now, rereads the number.

“Fifteen thousand, six-hundred-twenty-nine.”

I feel a tap on my head.

“Chris.”

“Yeah?”

“Chris,” Matt repeats, his tapping more forceful.

“What, Matt?”

“Chris, go onstage.”

My eyebrows furrow for a second. Is he delusional? “What?”

“That’s my number, Chris!” His voice is growing louder, more excited, fuller of life. “Chris! Chris, it’s mine!”

The President is becoming anxious, now, that the person who’s been selected isn’t heading upstage. “Number fifteen thousand, six-hundred-twenty-nine, will you please come onstage?”

“I’m coming!” Matt calls, lifting off my head and zooming towards the stage. He becomes a speck rather quickly, the only visible part of him his rapidly-beating wings. So like him to forget all about etiquette. I’m left to force my way through the more aware crowd. The occasional pat hits my back, and I just smile in nod. _I think I’m still in shock._

When the President spots Matt, she grins. “And where’s your partner?” She asks carefully.

“Here!” I call, raising a hand and sidestepping through the crowd. Once the stage is within reach, I hoist myself onto the stairs and climb up, almost entirely on all fours. My movements are clumsy with haste. “Here. I’m here.”

Both Matt’s and my breaths are rushed and heavy as the President picks up a candle. “Stand across from each other,” she instructs, and I move, seeing that Matt’s in complete awe. I don’t blame him—his dream’s coming true.

I still can’t believe it’s actually happening. Us, commoners, _males with only one number each,_ are going to get what we’ve always wanted. It’s… astounding.

The candle is placed between us. Only now do I realize that it floats in the air, bobbing a bit with every shift and every breath. She lights it with a flick of her fingers, and starts to mutter the words she must. They pass through my ears without the meaning of them striking me, but I don’t care. I don’t care at all. I just want Matt to change. I want it _now._

“You may now blow out the candle, Matthew James Bellamy.”

He does so, eagerly. In a split second, right before my vision is taken over by the light, I see him, hovering in midair, eyes wide and hopeful, the biggest smile ever to grace his face plastered on his lips.

I love him. 

All I see is bright yellow, then. When I was in the crowd, it seemed like a split second—but being part of the process, actually standing onstage with your partner’s happiness lingering on the other side of the light; that feels like an eternity.

Time stretches on, and my mind wanders to Matt. To all the moments we’ll have in the future. Sitting together on the couch, my hands running through the feathers decorating his wings. Holding hands while we walk down a road together. _Hugging._

All things others have been able to do that we’re going to get for the first time.

As those thoughts start to whirl through my mind, and the ever-present knot in my stomach tightens, I realize the light is dimming. My vision starts to return—the edges, first, become dimmer, and the sides of the stage reveal themselves to me. In a single split second, though, the rest of my vision comes whirling back.

In a single moment, the twisting, turning feeling that had occupied my stomach unraveled completely.

Matt’s standing before me. At eye level. _Standing._

He’s shorter than me—I expected as much—but he’s still _there._ Standing before me.

And he’s absolutely stunning.

The first things I notice aren’t his eyes, or the thousands of soft strands of hair. It’s his wings. They’re taller than I am, despite his stature being smaller than mine. The curve of bones and thick, built-up muscle almost towers above me. Those soft blue feathers are so much bigger than I thought they’d be—each one is the size of my forearm. And there aren’t flecks of orange within them, no. _Entire feathers_ are orange, sparsely decorated throughout so that they give the appearance of a shimmer.

My eyes follow the flowing line of his wings, from the tips all the way up until they disappear behind his shoulders. I then catch sight of his face.

The face that’s finally big enough for me to hold in my hands.

I never noticed it before, but his eyes match his wings. And I failed to realize earlier that he's tucked one of the poinsettias I gave him behind his ear. The crimson petals stand out so vibrantly from the pearl of his skin and the umber of his hair, and it's so clearly _him._

“Matt,” I breathe, before practically falling into his arms.

He’s so warm. And, as my hands clutch onto the fabric of his kleed, torn in the back to make holes for his wings, I can feel his own grasping onto mine. His form is tiny, bordering just on the edge of malnourished, but it fits so well against my own. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his wings unfold from his shoulders. They grow, stretch to a height of twelve feet or more, before enveloping both of us in a sort of cocoon. Tiny rays of light filter through the thin feathers encasing us, casting spotted shadows on our bodies.

My heart is melting. I'm sure of it. My best friend, _my soul mate,_ is finally here with me. Nothing in my life has ever competed with the elation that rattles through me now.

I pull away from him, still in the case of feathers, to take a good look at his face. Nothing has changed from the tiny fairy I saw mere minutes earlier, but it’s simply _my size._ Involuntarily, my hand reaches up to cup his jaw. His skin is prickly with day-old stubble, but soft at the same time with tender skin.

He stares at me, deep blue eyes ever so intense, a smile only just on his lips. “Chris,” he says, voice softer and lower than usual.

“You’re here.”

“I love you, Chris.”

It’s so quiet that I barely hear it, and the kiss that follows is so brief and light that I almost miss it. But then he’s pulling me into another hug and unfolding his wings and my heart is _throbbing_ in my ribs and _oh my god._

He's mine. He's just told me that he'll be mine for the rest of our lives.

I grasp onto him as if my life depends on it. The crowd below the stage is still applauding, cheering for us, for _Matt_ and the beauty he is.

“I love you too,” I mutter into the ear with the flower tucked above it.


End file.
